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With the leader of the IMF finding new ways to include gender equality into its conversation, it is then interesting to review if or how research output within the IMF has developed in recent years. Immediately there are some observations worth exploring:

An expansion of gender-focused Staff Discussion Notes (SDN)

In 2013, the IMF released the Staff Discussion Note ‘Women, Work, and the Economy:

Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity’ (Elborgh-Woytek et al., 2013), commissioned by Christine Lagarde. This was a highly notable paper in that it was the first major paper to focus on gender since 2006 and saw an expansion of the discourse around the IMF and gender. The paper takes the opportunity to highlight the significant level of research that exists illustrating the strong links between gender equality and macroeconomic gains, citing the most recent research by Loko and Diouf (2009), Cuberes and Teigneir (2012) and Aguirre et al. (2012).

These researchers all focus specifically on female labour force participation and suggest that increases in labour force participation rates of women, in turn, raise GDP levels. Importantly Aguirre et al. (2012) highlight that the greatest gains in female labour force participation are to be made in developing and emerging nations who would be most in need of the associated economic growth. Elborgh-Woytek et al. (2013) also highlight the gender gaps existing in rates of pay, even in the same occupations and controlling for education along with gender gaps in part-time work and full-time work rates along with receding, but still existing gender gaps in education. While all of this is essentially a retelling of existing research and is not new, what is new is that this paper represents a confirmation that gender does matter to the IMF. The intrinsic links between the advancement of women, particularly their increased participation in the labour force and macroeconomic gains are stressed continuously in this paper. Greater female labour force participation increases GDP (Cuberes and Teigneir, 2012) and economic growth is ultimately what the IMF wishes to see.

The IMF is most often focused on macro issues, and Zuckerman (2014) highlights how the IMF has moved slightly out of its norm with this paper. The paper is most interesting in that it acknowledges and discusses both the structural and cultural barriers that women face trying

13 See here blog post from Christine Lagarde arguing that increasing female labour force participation is central to boosting economic growth. https://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2016/09/14/to-boost-growth-employ-more-women/

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to enter the workforce. While the unpaid work of women in areas such as childcare or household management is often undervalued and unappreciated, Elborgh-Woytek et al.

(2013) point out that this frees up men to participate in the workforce while limiting women’s ability to develop economic independence. In many developing or emerging economies, the lack of regulatory protection in the informal sector where women often dominate compounds women’s economic vulnerability while economic independence is hampered by limited property or inheritance rights. Regulatory reform and increased provision of childcare and elderly care can provide the supports needed by women to enable them to enter the workforce, while steps to change cultural preferences for men in leadership positions so that there is greater social acceptance of female leaders contribute to greater female participation in the labour market. Such gender-focused policy recommendations are significant and certainly represent a new conversation by the IMF, one which is less ‘gender blind’ than it had been to date.

While this paper met with some positive response from Zuckerman (2014) and Williams (2014), it also falls short, as the focus of discussion is limited only to female participation in the labour force. While this meets the direct needs of the IMF in terms of a purely economic focus, Zuckerman (2014) calls for an approach that would also consider women’s rights, arguing that ‘women’s rights are drowned out by its smart economics framework’. It is difficult to detach this pro-woman IMF paper from the impact that IMF programmes have had upon women and Zuckerman and Karamessini (2014) interweave a case study on ‘Women and austerity in Greece’ into their critique of Women, Work and the Economy. ‘Severe austerity has been devastating for women’s labour market position’ in Greece, and Karamessini highlights how female unemployment rates have risen from 16.5 percent to 31.5 percent.

However, while this might be true, this paper also represents a milestone in the IMF and gender, promoting gender equality as an area of concern for the IMF, providing highly relevant and useful policy recommendation, recognising the very specific cultural and structural barriers women face which contribute to gender inequality and importantly, acknowledging the significance of women’s unpaid work in the home as carers or mothers.

This paper is indeed, as Zuckerman (2014) points out, a ‘rhetorical IMF leap forward’.

The IMF continued to surprise critics with another paper that put gender equality at the fore of its policy recommendations. Gonzales et al. (2015) tackle the interconnectivity between gender inequality and income inequality in details in a recent SDN (Staff Discussion Note)

‘Catalyst for Change: Empowering Women and Tackling Income Inequality’. They stress that gender inequality has several major macroeconomic implications including

• A positive relationship between gender equality and indicators such as HDI, GDP per capital and a state’s competitiveness

• A positive relationship between gender equality and economic growth

• A positive relationship between gender equality and macroeconomic stability

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This paper has moved on the 2013 IMF discussion substantially. Elbourg-Woytek et al. (2013) are firmly grounded in a ‘smart economic framework’ (Zuckerman, 2014), whereas Gonzales et al. (2015) consider a fuller contextualization of gender inequality exploring not only the employment-related gender gap but also gender gaps in education, health and financial inclusion. The regression analysis produces highly relevant results, finding statistically significant correlations between financial openness and rising income inequality, and between the easing of labour market regulations in favour of business and greater income inequality. Increased government spending and increased education are both positively associated with a rise in gender equality. Most importantly, the regression analysis also highlights that ‘gender gaps in labour force participation and education are the main drivers of income inequality’ (Gonzales et al., 2015). These findings by Gonzales et al. (2015) further illustrate the importance of broadening the research in this area, both within the IMF and among the wider research community. Arguably, if the IMF’s discussion has expanded to these issues, then it is time for studies to explore the impact of the IMF on gender across different dimensions. The IMF has a strong influence on national policy which determines the direction of government spending and their policy agenda. This spending and policy agenda under an IMF agreement has a direct impact on the socio-economic status of women and a study on the impact of IMF agreement upon the SES of women is long overdue. It is my intention with this thesis to move towards closing this gap in the research.

However, the most progressive part of the research by Gonzales et al. (2015) is its tone and policy recommendations. Gonzales et al. (2015) speaks of the ‘inequality of opportunities for women’, acknowledging the structural barriers such as lack of legal rights for women which prevent them achieving their full economic potential. Gonzales et al. (2015) stress that redistribution alone is insufficient to drive equality and call for ‘specific policies geared to reducing gender and income inequality’. They are diplomatic in their intention to not ‘render a judgement… of cultural and religious norms’ yet highlight their relevance to achieving gender equality on several occasions. The policy recommendations from Gonzales et al.

(2015) are strong, including the implementation of gender budgeting, revision of tax policies which are anti-women, the design and implementation of pro-family measures such as parity between paternity and maternity leave and affordable childcare and ensuring that finance is made available to women to enable women to achieve greater economic independence and influence. In fact, without its title or author details, one might not believe this paper to be and IMF staff discussion note at all.

This surprise is echoed by Duncan Green, the strategic advisor for Oxfam, who describes himself as an ‘old lag’ used to condemning the IMF as anti-poor and the epitome of market idolatry. Green welcomes the paper for putting ‘women’s rights at the heart of tackling income inequality’ and seems struck by the policy recommendations, not because of their innovation, but rather because they come from the IMF. Sargon Nissan of the Bretton Woods Project calls the IMF the ‘most unlikely institution to champion gender’s economic importance’. Very few would disagree, so when Nissan calls this paper a ‘bold step’ which

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makes a case for putting gender into the core of economic policy making, Nissan voices a level of simultaneous surprise and encouragement felt by those who have long called upon the IMF to recognize the need to rethink its policy recommendations and its approach in the context of inequality. However, despite the surprise and encouragement both Green and Nissan highlight several areas which the paper could have addressed. Green points out the IMF’s core point in this paper, that greater labour force participation among women can contribute to gender equality is an economically driven argument and that an alternative approach which asks how the economy can be organised to support equality and human rights need consideration. Nissan echoes this, noting that though ‘things are changing for the better’

changing the structure of the economy is necessary for real progress on equality.

IMF gender budgeting research project

Two previously mentioned IMF working papers by Sarraf (2003) and Stotsky (2006b) focused upon gender budgeting. These papers explored the rationale for gender budgeting, citing it as ‘just good budgeting’ (Stotsky, 2006b) but also highlighted how cultural gender biases proved difficult obstacles to overcome, for a state to fully implement and see the benefits of such progressive budgeting practices (Sarraf, 2003). Both Sarraf (2003) and Stotsky (2006b) called for the expansion of gender budgeting, and with this in mind, it is interesting to see that Stotsky is currently leading a project in the IMF on gender budgeting exploring how fiscal policies are being used by governments to advance gender equality. This is an interesting development within the IMF and represents a significant investment into gender-related research with this project running over multiple years and hosting a large team of IMF analysts. It signifies several important points. Firstly, this implies that the IMF has increased the priority given to gender-based research. Secondly, it implies that the IMF sees value in the concept of gender budgeting. Research has shown that gender budgeting provides a way to ensure that policy formation and national budgeting processes take into account the needs of both men and women. The IMF is in a powerful place to influence states undergoing its programmes to adopt gender budgeting as a strategy to encourage greater consideration of gender equality. Thirdly, while the IMF remit might be purely economic, tools such as gender budgeting allow the IMF to remain close within its remit but still interact directly with gender issues. This gender budgeting research project illustrates how the IMF can utilise tools to wide its influence to include gender equality. This project represents a notable development in both the remit of the IMF and also the intent of the IMF to concern itself with issues of gender.

As such, a review it the research is appropriate.

Stotsky’s (2016) Gender Budgeting: Fiscal Context and Outcomes papers set the scene for the regionally specific papers exploring gender budgeting in the project. Very early on, Stotsky draws upon the international commitment to gender equality and the advancement of women and girls, referencing the Sustainable Development Goals (which have replaced the Millennium Development Goals) and their focus on gender equality. Stotsky also draws upon work by the World Bank (2011), Duflo (2012) and Elborgh-Woytek et al. (2013) to highlight the economic benefits of greater gender equality with greater gender equality leading to

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‘more rapid economic growth’. With such a direct connection between gender equality and economic growth, Stotsky and her team are well placed to explore the current trends and impacts of gender budgeting, which uses ‘fiscal policy to advance gender equality’. It is accepted that states are in varying stages of economic development and this paper explores the rationale for gender budgeting, the factors influencing the approaches taken and the outcomes of such practices.

Over 80 countries have implemented some form of gender budgeting and Stotsky and her team take the opportunity to review approaches and outcomes through a series of case studies covering six regions including Asia (Chakraborty, 2016), The Pacific Islands and The Caribbean (Christie and Thakur, 2016), The Middle East and Central Asia (Kolovich and Shibuya, 2016), Latin America (Fragosa and Enriquez, 2016), Europe (Quinn, 2016) and Sub-Saharan Africa (Stotsky, Kolovich and Kebhaj, 2016). This is an ambitious and worthy project.

Ambitious in its coverage and intention to gain a macro view of how gender budgeting is being implemented and, also ambitious in its intention to account for regional differences in fiscal journeys. It is worthy in that it has the potential to firstly; highlight approaches that are successful and those that are not. Secondly, this study can provide policy makers with comparative frameworks to progress their own gender budgeting efforts and thirdly, it can build understanding as to how cultural biases interplay with gender budgeting approaches either stalling progress or placing parameters on their design or implementation.

Stotsky (2016) echoes her 2006 argument that gender budgeting can improve budgeting and that gender budgeting can be valuable where existing budgetary practices do not consider the ‘economic benefits of women’s development and gender equality’. As with Elson (2002) and Stotsky (2006b) there is an understanding that government budgeting processes are not

‘gender neutral’, but rather they are ‘gender blind’ and that gender budgeting relieves this blindness. In short, ‘gender budgeting is good budgeting’. Stotsky’s (2016) discussion around how gender budgeting can be used to overcome externalities is notable. For example, she highlights how education not only benefits the child personally, but it also produces positive externalities in that society benefits from a child’s education. The child is better able to contribute to society positively, will be statistically more likely to have better health or be more actively engaged in society. The opposite externalities arise where no education or sub-standard is received in that the child will be less able to contribute to society positively, will be statistically more likely to have worse health or be less actively engaged in society. These arguments are consistent with research that highlight the economic and social benefits that arise with the advancement of women and girls. With regards to such policies, there are social optimal outcomes, and Stotsky highlights how budgeting can be used to ‘influence a market outcome’ where negative externalities are occurring.

Stotsky’s discussion of gender budgeting frameworks and implementation approaches is thorough and insightful. She highlights the importance of certain ministries such as the finance ministry leading on gender budgeting efforts as it results in a greater integration of

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goals. Such an approach then complements approaches taken by spending ministries such as health or education, to interweave gender orientated goals into their programme design. The project team also explore gender budgeting in the context of governmental and institutional layers. International organisations such as the UN Women have played a key role by leading on and aiding, the implementation of gender budgeting across the world while research by NGO’s has highlighted how fiscal policy has gendered differentiated impacts. Such international organisations as well placed and have successfully applied, ‘meaningful pressure on governments’ to initiate and deliver measures to support gender equality through their budgeting processes. The team also highlight the importance of considering sub-national governments. Their role in progressing gender budgeting is also important as they carry the principle of gender budgeting through their sub-national budgeting processes.

There is a sense of impatience and frustration from Stotsky in this paper as she points out the

‘persistent inadequacy of government budgets’ in addressing women’s development needs.

The benefits of women’s advancement are clear, and the fiscal tools to drive this advancement are present, yet governments are failing here. The tone and point of Stotsky’s comments are important in the context of an IMF which is now more often considering the importance of gender equality. The point that an IMF team is not only open to gender budgeting but is also encouraging it is notable and hints at an internal IMF position around gender which is vastly different than what would have been considered ‘normal’ in the 1980’s or 1990’s. This, is indeed, progress.